by Lisa Henry
“Ciaran. Ciaran. Ciaran.” It became a prayer, or a plea, or something.
So good. So fucking good.
Ciaran arched his back suddenly and cried out. He reached down and gripped Darragh’s cock again, pumping it desperately. And just that, the knowledge that Ciaran wanted Darragh to come first, was enough to push Darragh over the edge. His body shook, every muscle tightening, and then he was coming, warmth pulsing over his belly. He’d never felt anything like it before. Not when he’d brought himself off furtively with his own hand, not even when he’d come deep in Ciaran’s hot, clenching hole. This was entirely new, and entirely wondrous.
Ciaran faltered, jerked his hips, and came, as well. He fell forwards into Darragh’s embrace, shivering and utterly spent.
“Thank you,” Darragh murmured, wiping Ciaran’s hair out of his eyes. He rolled them onto their sides and drew the quilts over them. He was streaming with sweat now, but later, when the fire burned down, it would be cold.
Ciaran smiled at him, sleepy, sated. “You okay?”
“Better than that,” Darragh said, pulling Ciaran closer. “I love you.”
Ciaran raised a hand and held it against Darragh’s cheek. “I love you, too. It’s true.”
Darragh smiled. “I know it is.”
The longer they lay burrowed together in the nest of quilts, the fire filling the room with warmth, the more it felt like those words had never been a lie at all, even when Ciaran had said them to manipulate him. Like maybe they’d been too caught up in schemes and treachery and paranoia to realise just how true it was from the start. And now, with all that cleared away, with Dublin behind them and with nothing between them but a sheen of sweat and the smell of hearth, they could finally see it for what it was.
Light, and clarity, on the darkest day.
Love, and protection, in the darkest kingdom.
They slept.
Ciaran woke warm.
He’d forgotten what it felt like, waking up warm. It felt like lazy Sunday mornings with a full Irish breakfast waiting on the table, or the first day of summer vacation off school, or a Saturday afternoon coming to in a strange bed after a good night out. Relaxed and drowsy, with no trace of worry or fear and nothing compelling him to leave the bed.
Two bodies sandwiched him in heat. At his front, Darragh, snoring through his beard with one arm under Ciaran’s head and the other draped protectively over his waist. At his back, Rabbit, knobby spine pressed against his own, curled up on the spare few inches of bed left over after Darragh and Ciaran had both made their claim. Ciaran found he didn’t mind the intrusion one bit.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so soundly. Even pure exhaustion didn’t usually silence the part of his brain that was always awake, always alert to danger. A sudden noise in the night or a dip in the mattress, and he’d wake with his heart already racing in fear of some fresh horror. But not last night. Not even when Rabbit had crept into bed. Not when Darragh was there, holding him.
That part of his brain—that frantic, screaming part that shredded his nerves—maybe it knew it could rest now. Maybe it knew Boru was truly gone.
Darragh and Rabbit were still asleep, both breathing heavily and steadily under the pile of quilts. The fire had burned down overnight, leaving a chill and a lingering smell of smoke. Ciaran just burrowed deeper into the nest of bodies and blankets until he was comfortable again and closed his eyes. He dozed for a while longer, until the pressure on his bladder forced him to think about extricating himself. He lifted Darragh’s hand from his waist and squirmed out from between the pair of them.
He padded to the bathroom, shivering, and relieved himself in the black toilet bowl. Not that it flushed anywhere anymore, but he felt a strange urge towards normalcy after this morning’s awakening and they’d be leaving this place soon anyway, so why not? If only he could run the taps on the sink and brush his teeth. Put a kettle on in the kitchen, crack some eggs over a frypan, stick some bread under the broiler. Just the thought of such domesticity made him smile, if a little wistfully, but then he remembered. They’d be going to Cúil Aodha, soon, and there were chickens there, and stoves, and he could make Darragh fresh eggs every morning for the rest of his life, if that was what he liked. As for the indoor plumbing, maybe that would come back with the return of infrastructure and civilisation and aid. Maybe. Maybe Noel—Ciaran shivered again—would bring the rest of the gangs down. And Maureen was certainly tenacious enough to restore some form of order to the city. Enough that outside help might freely come again. Maybe freed from tyranny, the former slaves would be able to help themselves. Rebuild on their own, whether the Dáil and what was left of the UN and EU pulled their collective heads from their arses or not.
Ciaran forced his thoughts away from Dublin. It was none of his business what happened there now. Fuck it. He’d killed their tyrant, hadn’t he? It was up to the rest of them to sort out the mess Boru had left behind. Ciaran wanted peace and quiet, and chickens.
Darragh had promised to take him wherever he wanted to go, and Ciaran had chosen. Hadn’t even had to think about it, if he was honest.
Cúil Aodha. Home.
He could be happy there.
Ciaran felt one last pull towards Dublin, towards Trinity—the books—the decaying, mouldering books with nobody to read them. Stories of heroes and kings and the inexorable power of fate. Passing into history again, that was theirs. Most of them lost, maybe forever, because who remembered them now? Who valued them now?
In his mind’s eye Ciaran saw a group of people—strong, healthy, like Darragh—sitting around a fireplace in winter. He imagined himself sitting with them and telling the stories he remembered. Giving them back their history. It was a grand idea, but also the simplest. He would tell them their stories while Darragh looked on. The chieftain and his seanchaí.
His history, too, he reminded himself. His stories. He was a part of them, had come from this earth, and this blood, too. For so long he’d fancied himself some kind of foreigner, like he didn’t belong here, an outsider saviour, saving them.
Now, he realised that part of saving them, saving Ireland, also meant saving himself.
And there was nothing wrong or selfish about that.
Ciaran returned to the bedroom, to the narrow, warm space between Darragh and Rabbit. A place with no discomfort or obligations. No fear. Just two men who cared about him deeply, and whom he cared for in return. Two men he’d been to hell with, and somehow they’d all survived. Warm. Alive. Together. Going home.
Rabbit snuffled and mumbled in his sleep as Ciaran’s cold feet pressed against his legs. Ciaran shifted to allow him more of the quilt, and when he settled back down again, Darragh’s eyes were open.
“How long will it take to get to Cúil Aodha?” Ciaran whispered, not even giving him time to wake up properly.
Darragh smiled sleepily, sweeping the backs of his knuckles across Ciaran’s temple. “Four days? Maybe, if the weather’s good and the way’s clear. Maybe longer.”
“Are you certain you know the way from here?”
“I could find home in my sleep,” Darragh murmured.
Somehow that sentiment made Ciaran’s heart squeeze. “No more trying to convince me to return north to my father, then?”
“You’re a free man,” Darragh replied. “You choose your own fate from now on, and I won’t be your master. I’ll never force you into anything again. Never bind you again.”
Ciaran nodded, relief flooding him.
Darragh toyed with his hair. “But as your lover, as your partner …” His eyebrows knit a little. “Well, when my brother died, I thought my da would never recover. I thought something in him was broken and could never be fixed. I’d never heard him cry before, and Ciaran … Jesus, the sound of it …” His eyes shone with tears. “You need to tell your da that you’re alive, you understand? Whatever he is, whatever sort of man, he must be hurting now. Wondering about you. Worrying.”
“I don’
t care.” And yet, Ciaran knew he didn’t mean it.
“I won’t force you to do anything, Ciaran, but I hope one day to help you.”
“Maybe one day I’ll be ready for you to.” Ciaran bit his lip. “I don’t want to torture him with not knowing, I swear. But if I go back, he’ll never let me leave again.”
“I wouldn’t blame him for that,” Darragh said. “But he’ll have to fight me for you.”
Ciaran poked him in the ribs. “You could take him. Little government pencil pusher, he’s as small as me but with a potbelly.”
Darragh snorted. “Maybe I couldn’t take him, then. Small as you are, you certainly took me last night.”
Ciaran tilted his face forwards, brushing Darragh’s cheek with a kiss. “Only because you let me, Darragh. Thank you.”
Darragh slid his arms around Ciaran and was silent for a long moment. Then, drawing back to show Ciaran his surprised face, he said, “Why is Rabbit in bed with us?”
“Cold as a witch’s tit,” Rabbit mumbled back, startling them both. He lifted his head, flashing them both a bleary glower through the hair in his eyes. “Don’t see why I got to kip on the cold floor when yous get a nice cosy bed, all snuggled.”
Darragh rolled his eyes. “When we’re home, you’ll sleep in your own bed, Rabbit.”
“Good,” Rabbit muttered. “Can hardly get any rest at all with yous gabbing in my ear about fucking.”
Ciaran elbowed him. “You’re lucky we were just talking about it.”
Home. The three of us.
Ciaran lay back amongst the covers, closed his eyes, and smiled.
The wind was cold. It had picked up during the day, and now it was sharp and biting with the promise of winter. But the sky was clear, and all around Darragh, familiar green hills and trees rose to greet him, scenery that was as well worn into his heart as the sheep trails under his feet.
Familiar. Home.
And there in the distance, the little white and cream buildings of Cúil Aodha, looking like his mother’s collection of miniature houses. Looking like he’d dreamed them. A fever dream of a memory, like seeing his brother’s smile again in his sleep, never for the last time.
Darragh stopped, suddenly overwhelmed.
After Dublin, after everything, he’d never quite believed he’d see this place again. He’d held on to the hope, all the while secretly believing it was useless, it was hollow. But here he was, in sight of home. Not bringing the medicine he’d promised, but bringing something else instead: bringing Ciaran and Rabbit into his family. And with them, the promise of a better future, of allies instead of enemies, of bridges instead of borders, of cooperation where once there’d only been suspicion. Even when it feels like it, we are never really alone.
“Is that it?” Ciaran asked, hugging himself against the cold. “It’s beautiful.”
Darragh reached out and pulled him close, shielding him from the wind. Pulled Rabbit close, too, in a gesture more teasing than tender.
“I’ll call it beautiful when I see Mother Maeve’s cooking,” Rabbit said.
“You’ll be waiting a long while for that. May know her way around a wooden spoon, sure, but that doesn’t mean she can cook to save her life. But ah, a hot bowl of food I can promise you, one way or another.”
A hot bowl of food and a hearth and all his kin—new and old, related by blood and language or no—to share in it.
Clean clothes, a warm bed, and a fresh start. For Ciaran and Rabbit, but for himself, too. Maybe this journey hadn’t made him a new man, but it had certainly made him a grander, bigger, worldlier one. A wiser one, maybe, tempered by sorrow and regret, haunted by the horrors he’d seen, and so grateful to have come out the other side. So grateful to have a man like Ciaran in his life.
Cúil Aodha shone in the fierce, grey winter sunlight, and Darragh couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across his face.
They were home.
Rear Entrance Video series:
Apple Polisher
Wallflower
Straight Shooter (Coming soon)
The Flesh Cartel serial, with Rachel Haimowitz
The Professor’s Rule series, with Amelia C. Gormley:
Giving an Inch
An Inch at a Time
Inch by Inch
Every Inch of the Way
To the Very Last Inch
Bookended
With Violetta Vane:
Mark of the Gladiator
Galway Bound
The Druid Stone
The War at the End of the World
Hawaiian Gothic
“Salting the Earth” (Like It or Not anthology)
Cruce de Caminos
Coming soon:
Bliss, with Lisa Henry
He Is Worthy
The Island
Dark Space
Tribute
With J.A. Rock:
When All the World Sleeps
The Good Boy
The Naughty Boy
The Boy Who Belonged
Mark Cooper Versus America
Playing the Fool Trilogy (Coming soon)
Coming soon:
Bliss, with Heidi Belleau
Sweetwater
Heidi Belleau was born and raised in small town New Brunswick, Canada. She now lives in the rugged oil-patch frontier of Northern BC with her husband, an Irish ex-pat whose long work hours in the trades leave her plenty of quiet time to write. She has a degree in history from Simon Fraser University with a concentration in British and Irish studies; much of her work centered on popular culture, oral folklore, and sexuality, but she was known to perplex her professors with non-ironic papers on the historical roots of modern romance novel tropes. (Ask her about Highlanders!) Her writing reflects everything she loves: diverse casts of characters, a sense of history and place, equal parts witty and filthy dialogue, the occasional mythological twist, and most of all, love—in all its weird and wonderful forms. When not writing, you might catch her trying to explain British television to her daughter or sipping a drink at her favorite coffee shop.
To learn more about Heidi, please visit www.heidibelleau.com.
Lisa Henry likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.
Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.
She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.
She shares her house a log-suffering partner, too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.
Visit Lisa at her blog: www.lisahenryonline.blogspot.com, on Twitter: @lisahenryonline, and on Goodreads: goodreads.com/LisaHenry.
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